"Joining the school P&C was the worst thing I ever did."

When my son started school, I thought volunteering there would be a good idea. How wrong I was.

It was during one of the meetings ahead of the school year that we were encouraged to volunteer on parent committees and they made it sound so fun. I was excited to join. Being involved at the school made me feel closer to my son and his school experience.

I enthusiastically signed up for the school P & C and joined the Events Committee as a helper.

At first it was so fun. The existing members were so grateful for my help. Not many new parents joined each year so the same women and a couple of men had been doing it all for years. They were desperate for relief.

I soon found out what they needed desperate relief from!

My first sin was arriving late to an event we had to set up. I had told the committee that I wouldn’t be able to help set up because I had just had a baby and could only come after she had gone down for her morning nap. Apparently they forgot I had said this and when I turned up, was on the receiving end of several smart comments about how I was too late, it was all done.

I dismissed their attitude as a misunderstanding and threw myself into overseeing the event, refreshing food platters, tidying up and I stayed to help pack up.

But from this moment on, I was the enemy.

I came to understand that there was a small group of “powerful” women on the committee who had a taken an instant dislike to me and were spreading gossip about me and my tardiness. Strangely these women didn’t oppose it when I was voted in as President the following year.

I found out later that the reason they didn’t oppose me was because I was a much easier target in my big chair.

I’ve never met a more sinister group of women. Seriously, it must be exhausting being them. The majority of the committee members were absolutely lovely, and I developed some very close friendships. However these women were from powerful families at the school. They were over-volunteers, appearing on every committee possible and making themselves indispensable to the school.

I was a newby, and therefore a threat.

After a year of passive-aggressive attacks from false accusations to actually being yelled at by them in meetings, with nobody brave enough to leap to my defence, I was exhausted.

I left the committee for good, sitting there silently at the AGM as I was replaced and refusing to volunteer for further committees.

I know, I know, not all P & Cs are like this. Many are wonderful, warm, positive parenting communities. Now I am stuck at a school where my efforts are not welcomed. You're either part of the inner circle or you're not.

And these are the rules of being allowed to be part of the inner circle of parents at my son's school:

* You must not be younger or more attractive than other members of the committee;

* You must not talk to any of their husbands, ever;

* You must not suggest changing the way anything is done;

* You must not have good ideas they haven't thought of themselves;

* You should act as though volunteering is a burden, instead of enjoying it;

* You should not bring in lots of new people to the committee;

* You must not do well.

Have you ever volunteered on a school committee? What was your experience like?

Like this? Then try:

The things I used to care about before I became a parent. Like, the world.

Should we let our kids stay home from school, just because?